USAlive! (Alive) | Mikkeller ApS

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Reviews by ShogoKawada:

A- Darker than It's Alive!, this beer is a robust orange brown with a snowy, frothy head that laces immediately. Peaks and valleys, craters of foam.

S- Grapefruit, floral hops. Sweet, lilac. Similar to Its Alive!, perhaps a bit more twang of citrus here.

T- A lot more hops than the nose would believe. Piny, bitter, fruity hops. Orange, pineapple. Chalky, a bit of an increase on the bitterness of It's Alive... must be the US hops. Very tasty. More of a Belgian IPA and less of a saison when compared to It's Alive.

D- A worthy rival to It's Alive. I can't decide which I like better... I have another bottle of each that I plan to age. We'll see where it goes, and I'll update if necessary. A great beer, though. Mikkeller is really on my awesome list as of late.

More User Reviews:

A: The beer is hazy dark orange/amber in color and poured with a thin off white head that left some lacing on the surface but eventually completely faded away.
S: There are light aromas of grapefruit in the nose.
T: Like the smell, the taste has some citrusy flavors of grapefruit, but these are well balanced by the underlying malts.
M: It feels medium-bodied on the palate with a moderate amount of carbonation.
O: The beer goes down very smoothly and is easy to drink. Ordering this at a bar can make some interesting discussion if it should be pronounced “USA live!” or “US Alive!”

A: Amber color, slightly hazy due to the bottle conditioning. A really big off-white head with both thick and creamy, and airy, parts. Very good head retention and beautiful chunky lacings.

S: A very fascinating smell. Fresh fruity hop aromas (grapefruit, gooseberries, kiwi fruit) mix with pine-needles and fairly big dose of earthy brett. Here is also some grass, resin and a biscuity backbone. This smell is fantastic.

T: Even better than the smell, absolutely amazing. Very tasty hop flavors of exotic fruits, citric notes, pine-needles, resins and slightly raw floral notes. A big brett character sits side by side with the hops. Earth, yeast, some caramel. In the finish, there is a rather big and very pleasant bitterness coupled with a great combination of chewy malts, spicy and peppery hops and faint mineral notes.

M: Medium body, very creamy with soft carbonation. The beer slides oh so easily down the throat.

D: The taste of this one was as close to beer heaven is it gets, I guess. The rather aggressive hop profile and equally aggressive brett character works fantastic together and the beer is just really really taste. Almost ridiculously easy to drink.

Pours a murky yellow brown with a white head. The aroma is apple and banana with some spices and some tartness/wildness. The flavor is alcohol with the same mix of fruit that was in the aroma. There is a little brett funk in the flavor as well. Medium mouthfeel and low carbonation.

750ml capped bottle at fridge temp poured into a snifter. about 1 year of age.

pours out a nice cloudy light orange color with a big 3-4 fingers of nice retentive off white head. good lace, looks good!

kind of off aroma. definatly not your usual barnyard brett aroma as i was expecting. hard to detect any brett at all, smells more like really old bottle funky. a wierd wet cardboard, concentrate grape juice thing going on. slightly figgy, maybe a touch of apple juice. becomes a little carmelly as it warms.

the taste is much the same, something doesnt seem quite right here. sweet fruity malts, concentrate grape and apple juice funkiness. this just tastes really off. slight caramel malt. no real sourness. some bitterness in the finish.

finishes a little sweet and dry. lots of carbonation. just slightly tart.

this was just awful, im not sure if something went wrong with this batch or it was just a really old bottle, but i could hardly finish a glass. avoid this!

I received a bottle of Mikkeller Alive! as a Christmas gift. It was purchased at Craft Beer Cellar in Belmont, MA. I think this should prove to be quite the interesting beer...750 mL bottle, poured into my Rodenbach Grand Cru glass.

Appearance (4/5): Alive! has a cool burnt orange-reddish hue and is topped by a gorgeous, towering off-white head of foam of 2.5 fingers. The beer is translucent and brilliant when held up to the light.

Smell (4/5): Hoppy, spicy, a little funkiness (due to the Brettanomyces), herbal, grassy hops, earthy, a little bit metallic (perhaps this bottle is a bit on the older side and has begun to spoil?).

Taste (4/5): Not what I was expecting from its style identification, printed on the bottle, as an "American Wild Ale." This beer tastes quite hoppy, and has an interesting fruity-spicy yeast quality that comes on late, making this beer reminiscent of a Belgian IPA, but with Brett. Fruity-bitter aftertaste is like ruby red grapefruit, semisweet and balanced at the end, perhaps from the caramel malt. Brettanomyces adds a layer of earthy, grassy funkiness. This beer has a very complex flavor profile: every sip brings a slightly different taste to the fore. Its complexity makes classifying Alive! pretty difficult. Maybe by calling this an "American" Wild Ale Mikkeller was trying to indicate this beer would be an unusually hoppy affair.

Moutfeel (4/5): Medium body, medium carbonation. Not super active or effervescent like some wild and sour ales. A little hop prickliness can be noted, along with a light dryness (perhaps contributed by the Brett?). Goes down easy (this is helped by the fact that there is little alcohol flavor to be remarked upon.

Overall (4/5): Mikkeller Alive! is a strange beer...what is it? It's grapefruit hoppy, a little dry, a little Brett-y, some Belgian yeast sweetness, not sour...Is it a Belgian Strong Pale? An American Wild Ale? A Belgian IPA? Whatever it is, it's a fairly tasty beer, so I say embrace the weird and try it. It won't disappoint if you like a beer curveball every once in a while.

Pours a hazy gold-copper color with a one-finger white head. The head recedes into a thin layer on top leaving thick lacing.

Smells of a combination of pale and somewhat grainy caramel malts with good amounts of citrus and smaller amounts of tropical fruit hops. Mild amounts of brett funk waft out as well and intensify as the beer warms.

Tastes very similar to how it smells. Malt flavors that skew more toward pale than caramel but with good amounts of both kick things off. Coming in shortly thereafter are candied hop flavors - more earthy than in the aroma but still with strong hints of citrus. Midway through the sip mild hints of funk come in before fading into a mildly bitter finish.

Mouthfeel is good. It's got a nice thickness with smooth carbonation.

Drinakbility is also good. I finished my glass without a problem and could have another.

Overall I thought this was a tasty beer, although more of a wild IPA than a wild Belgian. I'm willing to bet the high amount of hops used is a result of the US part of the name. Worth a shot.

750ml bottle, with a simple Stars and, well, stars label, reminiscent of something out of Patton, the movie.

This beer pours a slightly hazy medium copper amber colour, with two chubby fingers of foamy, rocky, and vaguely creamy beige head, which maintains pretty decent retention, eventually leaving some sudsy curtains of lace around the glass. Not too shabby.

The carbonation is moderate, just a dwindling tight frothiness, the body a more or less medium weight, and sort of smooth, the yeast and hop astringency cutting - none too deeply, but cutting nonetheless. It finishes mostly dry, the citrusy hops and dusty funk presiding.

Just what it purports to be - a funky strong Belgian ale, with prominent American west coast hop stylings. Overall, while a tad distracting in its various goings-on, it does work, the numerous influences generally playing nicely together. This would have been awesome to have had during Olympic hockey a few months ago, when the USA was indeed alive, at least until the Canadians finished them off in the final, in OT.

Cloudy yellow with off-white three inch head, looks great. Hop aromas are terrific, medium mouthfeel, very lacey. Citra hop taste, orange. A full bitterness, lots of hops. A tad of sourness-astringency. Ken's bottle from the private order.More of an American strong.

Hazy dark amber color with beige head. Aroma has caramel malt, some sweet, overripe fruits and some floral yeast esters. Taste is more yeasty, it even has some light brett notes. Also the sweetness from the aroma does not translate to the taste, it's quite bitter and earthy, but it's still fruity overall. Medium body with medium to high effervescence. Overall it's a quite interesting beer.